


So Shall It Be

by lily rose (annabeth)



Category: The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, F/M, Murder, Poisoning, Sibling Incest, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 19:21:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4757972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth/pseuds/lily%20rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She simply lay, flat on her back, with Alfonso's blood on her. He would do anything to make it okay again. To remove the taint.</i>
</p>
<p>Spoilers for "The Prince".</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Shall It Be

**Author's Note:**

> I wonder just how many episode codas there are for the series finale? Nevertheless, here's one more!
> 
> My second attempt at Borgias fic. The first went over well! I hope the second attempt is still acceptable...

" _And mine_." It echoed in Cesare's ears as if he'd shouted the words. Perhaps he had, in a way; shouted them straight to Lucrezia's heart. She neither moved nor spoke, however; she simply lay, flat on her back, with Alfonso's blood on her. He would do anything to make it okay again. To remove the taint. He kissed her neck, felt her sweat against his lips.

He would never give her up again. He would never allow her to be bartered away again for the sake of the papacy—because she was _his_.

"Lucrezia," he murmured against her damp skin. "My love. It's all right. It will all be all right."

At last she seemed to resolve herself from her stupor; she moved, turned her face slightly towards his. "Cesare," she whispered. He wanted to thrill once again at the sound of his name on her lips, but something felt wrong. His heart shivered in his chest and ceased to beat for a moment. She didn't sound _happy_. Well, perhaps that was to be expected; why should she exult in the face of her husband's death? _His murder,_ whispered Cesare's conscience. Strange, he thought he'd stomped that out long ago.

Even if she were not to be happy, though, he'd never heard his name fall from her lips like this. As if she spoke it with censure. Never, in all the times he could recall of their interactions together, could he really say she'd ever censured him.

"Sis," he said carefully, more a question than anything. A question his heart would have answered, whether his mind willed it or not. "I am sorry."

"It's nothing," she said dreamily, as if she were some place far away, some place perhaps more brightly lit, more filled with joy. Cesare wiped at a streak of blood on her cheek and thought about how it was as if Lucrezia herself wept tears of blood. "If you didn't mean it, Cesare…"

How could he tell her he'd planned Alfonso's death? That only a few nights ago he'd engaged an assassin—different than Micheletto, but hopefully as good. But how could he lie? She'd be able to tell if he lied; he didn't want to deceive her, regardless.

"You said you were tired of your husband," Cesare said carefully. "I am truly sorry if this is not what… what you intended."

"Perhaps not exactly this." Lucrezia seemed to be in shock, barely moving even when the wet cloth cooled against her skin. Perhaps she was growing fevered, as she sometimes did. Or it could be something else: could it be the fact that Alfonso had died by her own hand? By poison she had administered, whether he had asked her for it or not? And then, suddenly, the room felt full of her presence, as if she'd come back from wherever she'd gone. "Cesare," she said, her voice firm and thick. "An accident, maybe." She raised one arm from the bed, her hand tinted red with blood, and when she put the back of it against his cheek, Cesare knew he would wear the badge of Alfonso's murder as well. As he deserved.

"I did not…" Cesare cleaned the last of the blood from her face and let the cloth drop; touching her with only his bare fingers now, he said, "I have done it all wrong; my love, I am so sorry."

"I know," said Lucrezia, still holding her hand to his face. "Cesare, love of my heart, light of my life. I told Alfonso something similar, right here in this bed. That he was the light of my days. He said, 'you know that I know that that isn't true'. And of course he was right."

She sat up. She twisted to face him, and Cesare could see a drop of blood right on her lower lip, clinging, like a poison itself. But she drew him closer, and Cesare could not will the impulse away: he kissed her, softly, then licked at her lip until he tasted the tang of the blood and knew he had taken it into himself, taken her taint and made it his.

"Lucrezia," he said, directly against her gentle mouth. "I would not have you shoulder any of the blame for this. It is to be mine. It _is_ mine; you had no fault, you were doing nothing more than he asked for. Let me go to God with this on my conscience. Let yourself be free of it."

"I will never be free of it," Lucrezia replied, but her hand curled around the back of his neck and held him close, oh so close. "Never. But that is as it should be. We will be twins in this, Cesare. We will both bear the blood on our souls, and know that we ought to cower before God."

"I will never let you cower before anyone or anything, Lucrezia. _Never_. Not even before God." How many times had he committed blasphemy for the sake of her love? Ten times? A hundred? A thousand?

He would do it a thousand times more, if it would make her smile. Make her happy again.

"Oh," she said, and twisted to fit herself more fully in his arms. "How I love you." Her kisses were different this time, after this husband's death. They weren't the frenzied kisses of joy and delight she'd bestowed when he'd brought her the knife with Sforza's blood on it. But…. but. More demure, maybe; certainly more decorous. She wasn't overwhelmed with happiness this time, but still she kissed him, gently and fully, on the mouth, the cheeks, his chin.

Cesare closed his eyes, lost in the sensation of her against him again, unable to do anything but repay her in kind, with kisses of his own.

After what seemed like much too short a time, Lucrezia leaned back; she didn't pull completely out of his embrace, but her face had sobered in the dim firelight.

"The servants, Cesare," she said. "They will be in at any moment. They may have given me privacy to tend to my husband, but it won't last. Alas, the silence, the solitude—it never does."

"I would see you again," Cesare said with finality. "I _will_ see you again. We shall have to find a way to be together soon."

"Of course you will see me again," said Lucrezia. "It would be impossible not to."

"Alone," said Cesare meaningfully. She nodded, and he smoothed a blood-sticky tendril of hair away from her face. "Forgive me, my love."

For a moment, she wore a strange expression, as if she wasn't going to grant him forgiveness. How long had it taken the Holy Father to grant him forgiveness in Juan's murder? Much longer than this, he hoped—he prayed.

"Always," she said, though, just as he was beginning to truly worry. "You are the other half of my soul. To withhold forgiveness from you is to never know peace myself."

It wasn't quite the answer he wanted to hear, strangely. He wanted declarations of love that didn't seem to come with… conditions. But he'd just run her husband through, hadn't he? And forced his beloved sister to finish him with poison, whether he'd intended that outcome or not. Maybe it was only fair that her love feel like this suddenly: like the stranglehold of his cardinal's robes. He searched her eyes, but whatever censure he thought he'd heard in his name earlier was nowhere to be found in her gaze; she looked at him directly, eyes clear, without a hint of any distress.

"Are you all right now?" he asked her, fingering her curls again, unable to help himself from touching her in some small way, even if that was all he could have.

"I did say I had grown so tired," she answered, eyes closing briefly. "'The only one who never tires me is you,' I said, remember?"

"Of course I remember," Cesare said. He wondered what she was getting at, wondered why he could not read her all of a sudden.

"I'm not tired of you, Cesare," Lucrezia said softly. "I'll never be tired of you. So it is. So it was. So shall it be."

"Amen," he said, "Amen to that, sis." He grabbed her and hugged her close, holding her until they could hear the scrabble of the servants at the door. He let her go. "I would that things would have been different, sister. But now you can be mine."

"Only sometimes, Cesare," Lucrezia admonished. "Behind locked doors and always within our hearts, but never out in the open, in public, in Rome. You know that."

He climbed off the bed. She'd always been his, even before he'd had her biblically. And it would have to serve, to know that he would always be hers, in her heart, the place where it mattered most, anyway; the _only_ place it mattered, as much as he wanted to shout her name from the balcony of the papal seat.

"Come to me tomorrow," Lucrezia said, trailing her fingers down his arm as he stepped away. "Here."

"And you will be alone?"

"As much as I can contrive it, yes, and for as long as I can manage. But we… we will not… well. I wish you could take me away, Cesare. I grow so tired of Rome, as well. Were it still like the night of my wedding, when no one had cause to be suspicious. But who knows who Alfonso might have told?"

"If he had said _anything_ of you that was a discredit to you, I would that I could run him through again," Cesare declared fiercely. He lifted his foot, to take a step toward the bed, toward her, again, when the door banged open and a servant bustled in. He set his foot back down and linked his hands behind his back, but he hoped she could see it in his eyes, how much he loved her, wanted to avenge any insult done her.

"Go with God, Cesare," Lucrezia said. "And do not forget."

He didn't have to ask her what she meant. _Do not forget to keep your own counsel_. To keep their secrets: that of the nature of the love that passed between them, and the true cause of Alfonso's death.

Cesare went out into the hall and shut the door. But he couldn't shut _her_ out, no matter what he might do, and he did not wish to.

Still, he walked with a lighter heart towards the exit; she was his. She had forgiven him, and she loved him.

For now, it was all he needed. It was enough.

END.


End file.
